what are barack obama's flaws?

The divide on this board, as I see it, is between people who want to give Obama a break for the good things he's done, yet will ask the rest of us to remember that presidents aren't omnipotent -- even as his administration targets American citizens and imprisons people in legal limbo without charging them -- and subject to the whims of an unruly Congress; and guys like me who don't expect miracles but who do expect presidents to put their prestige and considerable super-cool executive branch powers in something besides flexing the muscles of his war powers, at least some of the time.

Rambling, but hope it makes sense.

Morbz is always setting it up like the argument is whether Obama is perfect or not

Motherfuck motherfuck NO. The argument is that Obama is about 2% better than Bush.

I'm still among the most left-wing people I know.

Oh, the people you know...

(btw even my Obama-votin', way-richer-than-me,putting-up-the-flag-on-holidays sister knows that he's too right to be a centrist.)

"The argument is that Obama is about 2% better than Bush."
I'd rate Bush Sr. about 50% better than Bush. (I'd rather have had three more terms of Bush Sr. than the two of Bush Jr.) On that scale, where would Obama land?

i didn't feel like digging up the other thread but it was hilarious today when greenwald tweeted "it's telling that julian assange feels comfortable moving about the western world, but not the US" to which the proper response would be "yes, because he's paranoid and likely delusional"

I've already said Bush I is my least loathed president of the last 40 years. I don't do scores on these criminals, tho. (Yes, 2% was just made up) xp

Why do you guys read political columnists? Almost as bad as indie-rock criticism, or worse yet thinkpieces about pop.

we read your posts

and btw you post links to dennis perrin columns wtf are you talking about

I'd rate Bush Sr. about 50% better than Bush. (I'd rather have had three more terms of Bush Sr. than the two of Bush Jr.) On that scale, where would Obama land?

Bush Sr was a prime asshole no doubt but I don't remember him using his Iraq war as cover for ordering the assassination of American citizens - not that I'd be surprised if it turned out that he had, but the brazenness of the recent business puts Obama in some shitty historical company

darnyou, where've you been all day?

Rambling, but hope it makes sense.

Very well stated, actually. But I remain a generally satisfied supporter. As I pointed out elsewhere, he's 35% of the way into his first term; in today's insanely amped-up media landscape, it just seems like he's been president for 10 or 12 years. If he's reelected, he's got 79 months left to do some of the things you want him to do. (I realize that political time is different than normal time, and that that first 35% is disproportionally important.) And, an ever-dwindling demographic, I'm still someone who enjoys listening to him.

you post links to dennis perrin columns wtf are you talking about

He's no columnist, and I can't be pullin out musty LL Cool J quotes all day

i see no reason why not

If he's reelected, he's got 79 months left

I see that as far as rank & file Dem fantasies go, Clinton is till the relevant comparison.

Two-term prezzes are dead men walking by the sixth year.

darnyou, where've you been all day?

I was on this thread a lot I think!

I acknowledged that political time isn't normal time in the post. But while major legislation might be out of the question in years 7 and 8, I don't think you can't do anything. I'd have to check--Eisenhower's and Reagan's and Clinton's last two years weren't complete blanks, were they? And surely the make-up of Congress matters some.

Reagan's second term >>>>>>>> his first, but he was the greatest Western leader since Charlemagne.

u crazee

oh I forgot, you think Timberlake is a great pop star.

wait'll you see HIS presidency

haha

he'll rename DC Omletteville.

Reagan deserves credit for ignoring just about every one of his advisers and the entire conservative establishment and negotiating with Gorby.

The least harmful of the Cold War presidents -- the one president who understood the consequences of war after leading the biggest fighting force in modern history -- was Eisenhower.

greenwald has lost it

he's a must read for keeping track of the issues he cares about but as a political analyst or even a polemicist he's basically worthless at this point

― kenny logins (goole), Monday, June 21, 2010 9:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think the most recent several-thousand-word screed about jon chait and jonathan bernstein (not guys who i have any great love for, but at least chait is funny sometimes) is the one that will get me to unsubscribe from my rss reader

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/09/13/2010-09-13_british_teen_luke_angel_banned_from_united_states_for_life_for_offensive_email_t.html

still one of funniest thread titles ever

And we know that no one is a better arbiter of humor than noted stand up comedian Dr morbius

biter of humor

I love how the kid says after that it was just "a silly thing" he did, and maintains he "doesn't care" about the banning. It's like he was came preprogrammed from some some 17-year-old-stereotype factory.

and banning a kid from a country he probably doesn't intend to visit cuz they sent a drunken abusive email is fairly adolescent behaviour too

yo is it true luke angel got 51'd by obama in an offensive email beef?

My guess is there was quite a bit more to this e-mail than authorities are saying. Brits are natural born liars so I doubt we will ever get the real story from this retarded little f***stick or his government on that dreary, pestilent island.

not sure why were taking the word of a 17-year-old kid that hes actually banned from the US

iow cozen otm

you never know which english 17 y/o is going to be the one to actually try to kill the president

max this shit was reported in the ny daily news

just sayin

yeah i read the article

The U.S. Customs & Border Protection agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security and is in charge of enforcing immigration law, said it "would not discuss" specific cases. A spokeswoman, however, did tell the Daily News that "there are a variety of reasons why a person could be banned from entering the United States."

She noted that, through the Immigration and Naturalization Act, there are more than 60 reasons a person could be denied entry. Among them are health concerns, immigration violations, as well as security concerns.

"The police who came ‘round took my picture and told me I was banned from America forever," the 17-year-old said.

i didnt know that the british metropolitan police had the power to ban a person from the us forever

i guess thats the "special relationship" for you

max are you auto-programmed to miss sarcasm from me on an obama thread or what

"this was in the ny daily news" = "lol yr right who knows what the story is here"

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3Z5nPuRr_HU/SaHa4HMWz_I/AAAAAAAAAG8/mv51a5Z0ao4/s400/Lisa+the+Iconoclast1.png

"You, and your children, and your children's children!"

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/11/02/sports/s034930D67.DTL

too timid and/or haughty to tout legislative victories

hertzberg certainly thinks so:

But why don’t “the American people” know these things? Could it be because the President and his party did not try, or try hard enough, to tell them? Obama’s still loyal supporters—his “base”—are, most of them, disappointed and depressed. This year, more Democratic candidates seemed to apologize for the health-care law—notwithstanding its imperfections, their party’s greatest accomplishment in generations, the fulfillment of a century-long dream—than to proclaim it. Compromise, timidity, and the ugliness of the legislative process—not all of it unavoidable—have exacted a steep toll. Even Obama’s temperament has become a political liability.

funny, though, how hertzberg fails to train his microscope on that estate of american life whose purported function is to inform the public about national affairs

and by "funny" i mean "entirely predictable"

what if you had an estate and nobody cared

hadn't read that hertzberg piece yet. this is dead on ~
"As for 'the American people' themselves, it seems clear enough that their rejection of the Democrats was, above all, an expression of angry anxiety about the ongoing economic firestorm. Though ignited and fanned by an out-of-control financial industry and its (mostly) conservative political and intellectual enablers, the fire has burned hottest since the 2008 Democratic sweep. By the time the flames reached their height, the arsonists had slunk off, and only the firemen were left for people to take out their ire on. The result is a kind of political cognitive dissonance. Frightened by joblessness, 'the American people' rewarded the party that not only opposed the stimulus but also blocked the extension of unemployment benefits. Alarmed by a ballooning national debt, they rewarded the party that not only transformed budget surpluses into budget deficits but also proposes to inflate the debt by hundreds of billions with a permanent tax cut for the least needy two per cent. Frustrated by what they see as inaction, they rewarded the party that not only fought every effort to mitigate the crisis but also forced the watering down of whatever it couldn’t block."
as unfair as it might be, obama has to take the blame for allowing the frame hertzberg outlines to become dominant. the press had his back during the election, when he wasn't shy about calling out the gop and mccain's complicity in the market crash. backing off that message once in office, for whatever reason -- to soothe the markets; to float about the fray; he's not the fighter people thought he was; he doesn't really believe the gop's at fault; he's in the back pocket of the financial industry -- didn't really work out so well